Improving the domestic system

[ZIMDOGGY]

Would like to see some genuine pace bowlers come over, usually it’s always batsmen who do these journeys.
And why stop at England? Some Pakistani dude slamming out 145 from Rawalpindi who can’t get a gig domestically (they have pace stocks) might find a home in Harare

[secretzimbo]

Counties probably won't send their big pace bowlers. They wrap them up in cotton wool ver the winter. No point in them going out bowling quick and getting injured with no physios in Zim. Whereas batsmen need time in the middle so it's very beneficial for them.

Lol remember when we tried to recruit those few Pakistani guys, gave them franchise gigs and promised them passports and an express route to the national team? I wonder whatever happened to them! It's a very sensible strategy tbf, although morally wrong. Should be focusing on our own development. That's what the USA are doing now.

[secretzimbo]

I think the big thing will be getting the UK based zimbos back for a bit of fun in the sun during the winter. There's a handful of zimbos sitting on county contracts with slim chances of ever making England squads, they could certainly improve the standard over here. Curran, Welch, Snater, Compton and now Gubbins have all come over in recent years and then there's guys like Schadendorf, Melton, Gilchrist and possibly now Ballance who could definitely head over for the winter. Also unless Gubbins has some connections to Zim he's just a random Brit who's come over for a few weeks so there's no saying that others won't follow suit

The problem is, some of the coaches and managers in the franchises have the mindset that anyone that has left is a traitor and has made their choice - why would we let them back?

That's a ridiculous mindset and it needs to change.

LIke I say, I'm convinced we need 2 overseas in every team every match. I don't think 10 slots is a lot. If we are sticking with five franchises then I think it's fine. If half were Zimbos then it's very easy to sort. They don't even need accommodation. A very cheap way to improve the standard.

Also it's not even just about the standard and the quality of the overseas players themselves. It's about just physically having someone different to bowl at. or someone different to face. At the moment our system is largely the same core 40-50 players who have been playing each other for 10 years and know each others game very well. We need the overseas to just provide something different for bowlers to think about. That's why I don't really care if a few of them have to be Associates or 2nd XI county players or whatever.

[secretzimbo]

I wonder why Snater didn't come back again this year. He doesn't seem to get anywhere near the Dutch side these days.

[Googly]

England are our best bet because of the northern/southern hemisphere thing. It just makes so much sense. But it has to work both ways- they have to accommodate us that side, and at County two level, not club. It's half a player per county, it doesn't dent their plans, they usually have a trialist every second game anyway. They get through about 35-40 games, it would be a tremendous experience for our guys.

[Googly]

I know it's not feasible but it would be great to have an A side in the South African set up. We just have to play a higher level of cricket. You just have to look at this u 19 wc, our better batsmen are not far off, and neither are our bowlers, this side in particular have been surprising, it's been excellent. But then we just fall away because our club and franchise just isn't good enuf and there isn't the volume.
And of course there isn't the incentive to continue because there's no money.
It's frustrating to watch.

[Googly]

I think the big thing will be getting the UK based zimbos back for a bit of fun in the sun during the winter. There's a handful of zimbos sitting on county contracts with slim chances of ever making England squads, they could certainly improve the standard over here. Curran, Welch, Snater, Compton and now Gubbins have all come over in recent years and then there's guys like Schadendorf, Melton, Gilchrist and possibly now Ballance who could definitely head over for the winter. Also unless Gubbins has some connections to Zim he's just a random Brit who's come over for a few weeks so there's no saying that others won't follow suit

The problem is, some of the coaches and managers in the franchises have the mindset that anyone that has left is a traitor and has made their choice - why would we let them back?

That's a ridiculous mindset and it needs to change.

LIke I say, I'm convinced we need 2 overseas in every team every match. I don't think 10 slots is a lot. If we are sticking with five franchises then I think it's fine. If half were Zimbos then it's very easy to sort. They don't even need accommodation. A very cheap way to improve the standard.

Also it's not even just about the standard and the quality of the overseas players themselves. It's about just physically having someone different to bowl at. or someone different to face. At the moment our system is largely the same core 40-50 players who have been playing each other for 10 years and know each others game very well. We need the overseas to just provide something different for bowlers to think about. That's why I don't really care if a few of them have to be Associates or 2nd XI county players or whatever.

That's also because the coaches and managers have been so isolated, aside from any prejudice they may harbour, they don't actually realise that we're very ordinary. They need to see some overseas guys really perform to understand that we need to think out of the box. Anything that improves our standard, or makes it more interesting and competitive has to be a good thing.

[secretzimbo]

England are our best bet because of the northern/southern hemisphere thing. It just makes so much sense. But it has to work both ways- they have to accommodate us that side, and at County two level, not club. It's half a player per county, it doesn't dent their plans, they usually have a trialist every second game anyway. They get through about 35-40 games, it would be a tremendous experience for our guys.

The ECB themselves won't do any sort of deal with us though..... They seem to think Bob is still running around chopping farmers heads off for fun. They would probably rather play Afghanistan than us, which is just bizarre.

But the counties of course are completely independent anyway. We just need to work with a few of them. Probably the smaller ones. Unfortunately there's all the things around eligibility in England so I don't think a county would be able to just parachute some random Zimbo's in. But we could certainly have their guys coming here for our season, and have the counties themselves touring in March for their pre-season.

[Donald]

I know it's not feasible but it would be great to have an A side in the South African set up. We just have to play a higher level of cricket. You just have to look at this u 19 wc, our better batsmen are not far off, and neither are our bowlers, this side in particular have been surprising, it's been excellent. But then we just fall away because our club and franchise just isn't good enuf and there isn't the volume.
And of course there isn't the incentive to continue because there's no money.
It's frustrating to watch.

Right on brother

If the zimbabwe cricket leadership put as much effort into this as they do writing elongated poison pen letters against the streaks of the world we would be world beaters

[Googly]

England are our best bet because of the northern/southern hemisphere thing. It just makes so much sense. But it has to work both ways- they have to accommodate us that side, and at County two level, not club. It's half a player per county, it doesn't dent their plans, they usually have a trialist every second game anyway. They get through about 35-40 games, it would be a tremendous experience for our guys.

The ECB themselves won't do any sort of deal with us though..... They seem to think Bob is still running around chopping farmers heads off for fun. They would probably rather play Afghanistan than us, which is just bizarre.

But the counties of course are completely independent anyway. We just need to work with a few of them. Probably the smaller ones. Unfortunately there's all the things around eligibility in England so I don't think a county would be able to just parachute some random Zimbo's in. But we could certainly have their guys coming here for our season, and have the counties themselves touring in March for their pre-season.

That's why I'm saying this kind of arrangement would have to be negotiated at ECB level otherwise there are eligibility issues that only ECB can waive.
Our franchise cricket is incredibly attractive for English cricketers in their off season. Firstly it's just a great place with friendly people, then you get first class and list A stats and they assume that if they have any, they can only improve them here, not always the case, but it's likely.